About Language Pathways

A language pathway is a guide that will take you from the beginner to advanced level. In this guide, I won’t be teaching you Japanese directly; rather, I will teach you how to learn Japanese. The amount of resources can be overwhelming, and you can waste a lot of time just trying to figure out what to study. That is why this guide will recommend high-quality resources and provide detailed information on how to use them. Language learning is a journey that looks different for everyone, but remember consistency and time are the keys to becoming fluent in any language.

Keep in mind that learning a language is a long journey. Despite the claims you see online, there is no way to learn a language in just a few months or even a year. It’s a long, winding path that takes time and consistency to traverse, but it’s also a lot of fun! The goal is to reach a point where you can enjoy all the things you love in your native language, such as movies, books, and video games, in a different language. There will be times when it feels frustrating and you may think you’re not making progress fast enough, but that’s something every language learner experiences. I’ll share a little secret with you: All those videos you see online of polyglots who claim to have learned a language in a few months are often fake. To make one of those videos, all you need to do is memorize some common phrases and edit out the mistakes. Don’t compare yourself to those people. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. You don’t know how much effort someone has put into studying. Time spent in the language is the biggest factor in your progress. If you can only study for 15 minutes a day, but someone else can study for an hour a day, after one year, the person who studied an hour a day will likely be better than you not because they are better at learning languages, but simply because they’ve spent more time with the language. Remember, any time you spend on a language is not time wasted. You are progressing and learning, and you’ll see the results further down the line. Good luck on your journey, and have fun!

Beginner


Start by watching the video below from Japanese Pod 101, which walks you through all the characters and their readings. Below you will also find Anki flashcards for practicing the characters. I recommend having a piece of paper next to you where you can practice writing the characters. This will help with your memorization. For example, when the flashcard says “a” you will then write “あ” on your piece of paper. If a card asks you to type a character, then just type the character you see. For small characters, type L before the character to make it little. Don’t worry if there are a few characters you can’t remember, you’ll pick them up as you start to practice reading.


Intermediate


The same resource can be used for both active and passive learning. For example, if I read an article and stop at every sentence to look up all the words I don’t know and make flashcards from those words to study them, that’s active learning. If I read the article, quickly look up a few unfamiliar words, and continue reading once I’ve seen the definitions, that’s passive learning. With active learning, it will take you longer to get through a resource, but you’ll remember it better and learn more new vocabulary and grammar. With passive study, you’ll get through the resource faster and gain more input, but you may not retain as much new vocabulary or remember it as well.


Advanced



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